Liquid reductant, one example of which is urea, may be injected into an engine's exhaust for use in an SCR catalyst. During low exhaust temperatures (due to, for example, light engine loads and low engine speeds during urban driving) reductant may be slower to evaporate and accumulate within the exhaust, leading to the formation of deposits (e.g., urea deposits) in the exhaust which may degrade engine performance. To reduce such deposits, lower doses of reductant may be injected and a disperser device may be used to break up droplets of injected reductant in the exhaust stream.
The inventors herein have recognized issues with the above described approaches. Injecting a decreased amount of reductant may degrade the SCR catalyst's effectiveness at treating NOx emissions. What is more, a disperser device may not sufficiently increase urea evaporation for light engine loads and higher injection doses. Further still, during changes in engine load, such as during vehicle acceleration from a slow speed, insufficient reductant may be provided at the SCR catalyst to treat NOx emissions, exacerbating the above described problems.
Accordingly, as a brief summary, devices, systems and methods are disclosed for injecting liquid reductant. In one example, a method includes temporarily increasing a liquid reductant dosing value injected by an injector from a first dosing value to a second dosing value, the temporary increase in response to a change from injecting liquid reductant onto a first impact location on a disperser device to injecting onto a second impact location on the disperser device.
One advantage of such an approach is that heat transfer from exhaust flow to the disperser device may be utilized to increase vaporization of reductant, while compensating for the temperature gradients across the disperser device. For example, in the method described above, the second location may include higher temperature portions of the disperser device, the higher temperature portions causing increased evaporation of the reductant. Further, during transient engine conditions (such as increasing engine load or increasing engine speed) the second location may include little or none of the first location, leading to further heating of the reductant, and thus increased vaporization.
It will be understood that the summary above is provided to introduce in simplified form a selection of concepts that are further described in the detailed description, which follows. It is not meant to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, the scope of which is defined by the claims that follow the detailed description. Further, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any disadvantages noted above or in any part of this disclosure.